Belmont Ponders MBTA Rezoning

Belmont Ponders MBTA Rezoning:

An Overview of 3A Requirements and Challenges

By Doug Koplow

This fall, Belmont Town Meeting will be asked to vote on a major rezoning proposal that will increase the scale and density of housing construction within a significant portion of the town. The changes are mandated by the stateMBTA Communities Multifamily Zoning Requirement, passed in January 2021. The law modifies Section 3A  of the Massachusetts Zoning Act and is often referred to by its section number. Final guidelines , first issued in August 2022, set the compliance requirements for the town.

This article provides an overview of the law, key trade-offs on implementation options, and how Belmont has moved to balance those trade-offs thus far.

Background on the 3A Law and Belmont’s Requirements

The 3A law aims to increase housing stock in 177 communities served by the MBTA. State-mandated requirements vary based on community category: rapid transit, commuter rail, adjacent community (defined as MBTA communities with less than 100 acres of developable land near stations), or adjacent small towns (which have the additional constraint of less than 500 residents per mile and fewer than 7,000 permanent residents). Despite variation in requirements by transit category, Josh Fiala at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), who served as the town’s main 3A consultant, noted unequivocally that this is not about transit-led development but “[t]his is about housing production.”¹

Belmont is classified in the commuter rail category because of its two stops on the Fitchburg line. This classification brings with it a series of requirements from the state:

Housing production and type

• • Number. A minimum of 1,632 units (this is 15% of Belmont’s 10,882 households). Unit sizing must be amenable for families with children.
  • By right. No special permits or regulations that exceed the town’s baseline rules are allowed. Design and site plan review is permitted, though it is limited in what can be assessed and modified. 
  • Density per lot and per district. A minimum of 3 units per parcel is required. Lot consolidation is allowed and expected. Any 3A district must allow at least 15 units/acre; our committee’s proposal, which is now before the Planning Board, is much higher, with the proposed housing typologies or “subdistricts” allowing densities of 26 to 80 units per acre.² 
  • Overlay, not replacement. Original zoning remains an option for the landowner, though returns for larger buildings under 3A are expected to drive new construction at higher densities.
  • Mixed commercial and residential. 3A is focused on residential housing production but does allow mixed use so long as commercial space is on the first floor and no more than one third of the total square footage. The residential units count towards compliance, but the acreage on the parcels does not.

Required location and concentration of 3A districts

• Train-focused siting. 50% of the 3A units must be within one-half mile of train stations. Belmont has confirmed that this can be spread across our two train stops. The stated goal of this requirement is access to mass transit, though Belmont’s commuter rail service is infrequent, and we have multiple bus lines that likely carry more passengers per day.
• Large parcels, mostly adjacent to one another. At least 27 acres in Belmont must be zoned 3A, and no area within a compliant map can be less than 5 acres in size. Further, a single contiguous 3A district must be at least 50% of the total acres. These rules aim to ensure that parcels are large enough for “neighborhood scale planning” and associated amenities.³ This goal works better in a less built-up town than Belmont, as we have little latitude to create new neighborhoods, and most parcels near train stations have major roads that constrain the development area. The contiguity rules also make it impossible to spread 3A zoning across many parts of town.

Timeline

• Belmont is required to submit a compliant plan by 12/31/24. 

Section 3A is focused on changing zoning

The core strategy behind 3A is to require towns to relax their existing zoning requirements and allow multifamily structures to be built in selected areas “by right.” By-right bylaws allow developers to build to these adjusted rules with little oversight by the town. This shift in state policy is based on the view that towns use zoning and other local rules and committees to slow—and ultimately block—multifamily construction. The law also views a lack of multifamily construction as the critical lever to address the state’s rising cost of housing and below-target housing production levels; it views state intervention as a necessity to overcome this barrier. 

The state could have used a variety of other policy approaches to address housing supply. It may have provided a more rapid supply boost and better targeting of affordability but with fewer impacts on the look and feel of Belmont. One example is regulating short-term rental platforms that pull housing out of longer-term rental markets, which Belmont was working on pre-COVID and that New York has recently done.⁴ Modifying restrictions on creating accessory apartments within existing homes without mandating larger buildings as 3A does is another approach that may have allowed more rapid increases in available units but with financial benefits flowing to current owners rather than to larger developers, as is likely under 3A. Governor Maura Healy is trying to mandate zoning allowing accessory units across the state now. However, this would be on top of 3A and with very limited town power to adjust the rules to fit local circumstances.⁵ 

Addressing growing issues with market concentration through state regulation could also help with both supply creation and affordability. Private equity ownership of homes and multifamily housing is growing; in 2022, for example, 28% of all homes sold in the United States went to institutional investors.⁶ This trend likely drives up purchase or leasing costs and would be beneficial for the state to look into. Corporate owners can fully deduct property taxes (private owners are capped at $10,000)⁷ and many other expenses, as well as offset capital gains from sales across their portfolios, giving them an additional bidding advantage against individual owners. 

Further, market power issues are also evident in multifamily housing. Survey data by the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) shows that the top-50 apartment companies owned 2.5 million units in 2022, more than a third of which were owned by the 10 largest firms. Property management is even more concentrated, with the top-50 firms managing 4.2 million rental units, nearly half of which are controlled by the 10 largest firms. The single largest firm manages nearly 700,000 units alone.⁸ Property management firms increasingly use algorithmic software to manage properties and help set rental rates. Since they operate across multiple buildings and owners in the same areas of cities, there is a risk of anticompetitive behaviors that increase rental housing costs.⁹ 

Allow versus require. The 3A law does not require new, higher-density construction to be built, but rather that town zoning provide the right to build bigger if property owners want to. The state expects higher financial returns to developers from taller and larger buildings to trigger widespread reconstruction of 3A-zoned areas, with large associated increases in net housing stock. If this does not actually happen, there is a prospect that the state will further modify the rules so that it does. In fact, even before 3A is fully implemented, the Healy administration is moving extensive additional housing legislation forward through the proposed Affordable Homes Act. (While much of that act provides state funding to achieve housing goals, it also includes significant zoning modifications that would supersede Belmont’s zoning bylaw.)

Removing development guardrails. Belmont’s zoning rules govern allowable scale in particular sections of town, how much of a lot the structure can cover, how close the structure can go to neighbors, and other attributes such as lighting, noise, and landscaping that ensure properties fit within their settings and do not create nuisance impacts on residents living or working near them. Zoning rules can be arcane and frustrating; however, they have often evolved over decades to address problems that arose on earlier projects. Most importantly, zoning bylaws are the main tool available to towns to protect the scale and architectural feel of their community. By right zoning of multifamily structures removes most of these guardrails.

Section 3A is not affordable housing

A common misperception is that 3A is an affordable housing initiative. It is not. Rather, the law focuses on increasing aggregate housing supply through multifamily construction. The law’s Influence on affordability is indirect and may not be particularly strong. First, square feet of living space will generally be smaller in these buildings, so units in multifamily structures are expected to cost less than single-family houses. They will still be expensive, however. Recent postings for apartments in the Bradford development in Cushing Square, for example, are $2,856/month for a 469-square-foot studio apartment, and $3,823/month for a 2BR/2 bath unit with 855 square feet.¹⁰ Second, rising supply due to 3A-mandates across the state may eventually bring equilibrium rents down on average for all tenants. However, Belmont’s proximity to Cambridge and Boston, as well as a strong public school system, both suggest our new capacity will fill quickly and that housing will remain expensive here even if costs fall elsewhere in the state.

Third, 3A allows baseline zoning rules to apply to 3A overlay zones as well. Belmont’s inclusionary zoning rules mandate affordability allocations for buildings with more than six units. Buildings of 6 to 12 units require 10% to be affordable to residents, earning 80% of the median income for the area. This increases to 12% for 7 to 19 units and to 15% for buildings with more than 20.¹¹ For properties owned by the Belmont Housing Authority, which 3A can allow to be rebuilt bigger, the share of affordable units can be higher still. However, the goal of the law is not to create affordable housing in the way Belmont’s Housing Production Plan does. In fact, efforts to increase the ratio of affordable units above 10% require an Economic Feasibility Assessment to ensure that  the below-market units won’t prevent the structure from being built at all.This will be conducted by town contractor MAPC over the next two months.

Belmont’s Response: MBTA Housing Planning Process

Belmont has been planning for the implementation of Section 3A since the spring of 2022; key planning milestones are presented in Table 1. Through April 2024, evaluation of options to comply with 3A has been done largely by the appointed seven-member MBTA Communities Advisory Committee. Established by the Select Board, the committee was structured to pool perspectives from related boards and committees across town, including the Select Board, Planning Board, Belmont Housing Trust, Economic Development Committee, Historic District Commission, Board of Assessors, and DEI Implementation Committee. The town’s Office of Planning and Building is integral as well, providing both overall management of the process and extensive technical support.  

Throughout its tenure, the committee has aimed to meet 3A requirements in a manner that enhanced sections of town where higher-density development could fit well and perhaps even encourage underutilized parcels to be sold and improved. At the same time, the committee has committed to minimizing negative effects on abutters and to consider the anticipated economic impacts of the changes on the town’s budget. These aspects remain important for the Planning Board’s refinement phase as well.

Key Milestones on 3A

Jan. 2021 – 3A zoning for MBTA communities enacted

Dec. 15, 2021 – State issues initial draft guidelines for 3A compliance

Mar. 31, 2022 – End of public comments period on 3A draft guidelines. Substantial concerns were raised.

May 25, 2023 – Belmont’s MBTA Communities Advisory Committee appointed with a two-year term.

Aug. 10, 2023 – State issues final guidelines for 3A compliance. These were subsequently amended on Oct. 21, 2022, and Aug. 8, 2023. Further, Belmont continues to have one-on-one conversations with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities on how specific guidelines apply to the town.

Oct. 16, 2023 – First compliance model run completed by MAPC, the town’s contractor (though did not properly integrate contiguity constraints). The original plan was for model runs to have been completed much earlier and more frequently to allow for iterative adjustments to our 3A assumptions and locations.

Jan. 24, 2024 – Receive draft compliance scenarios (including contiguity) from MAPC. All scenarios either concentrated most of the development in a single part of town or zoned for much higher unit counts than required by 3A.

Jan.–Mar. 2024 – Iteration and presentation of alternative compliant scenarios by committee co-chair Roy Epstein to ensure the town had more control over the scenarios and much more rapid iterations of model runs.

Apr. 1, 2024 – Final committee vote on map and narrative memorandum for Planning Board handover.

Apr. 9, 2024 – Formal adoption of the task by the Planning Board.

Mid- to late-Apr. 2024 – Submit for state review of mandatory mixed-use plan (requires state approval).

May 2024 – Completion of massing studies by town contractor Utile.

Jun. 18, 2024 -Estimated completion of form-based zoning and updated zoning language by town contractor Utile. Opening of public meeting on 3A before the Planning Board.

June 20, 2024 – Submit for state pre-compliance review of 3A plan and EFA for inclusionary housing; state determination to be provided no later than Sept. 18, 2024.

Jun.–Jul. 2024 – Town development and refinement of public information materials outreach tools.

Jul. 9, 2024 – Closure of Planning Board public meeting.

Aug., Sept. 2024 – Discussions with Warrant Committee

Sept. 18, 2024 – Estimated data town will receive Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities determination of pre-compliance

Nov. 18, 2024 – Estimated Town Meeting vote on 3A proposal.

Sources: Chris Ryan, Belmont Office of Planning and Building; town documents;

 

Committee members as well as residents hold divergent views on the best course of action for compliance, a conflict visible at nearly every meeting. Some, for example, advocate for going well beyond the 3A requirements to allow larger structures, far more units and acreage than required, fewer parking spaces, a higher share of affordable units, and more construction of residential units in municipal and commercial parcels. Because zoning changes under 3A can pass with a simple majority of Town Meeting rather than the two-thirds required for many zoning modifications, these residents like the idea of using 3A to achieve their related social and community goals.

Counter-arguments raised concerns about retaining the town feel of Belmont that led many participants to move here in the first place; the loss of commercial space given our already low commercial tax base; the impact of large numbers of new school children on strained school buildings and budgets; and the fairly rigid rules on 3A development that suggest social goals could be achieved at greater benefit to the town using non-3A zoning as the framework. 

Planning process weaknesses and impediments

Key Actors: Any 3A-compliant rezoning plan will allow larger buildings; at present, these also will have much smaller setbacks than are required now, many of which will be adjacent to single-family homes. However, no committee members were appointed specifically to represent the interests of abutters. Public input has been solicited via less formal routes, such as brief public comment periods at the end of meetings, an online form for written comments, and within a handful of structured public forums; however, a committee seat would have been better.

Technical Deficiencies: A second critical limitation has been a series of technical constraints and delivery problems with the state-provided compliance model used to evaluate rezoning scenarios. These limitations greatly delayed Belmont’s ability to review options iteratively and have continued to reduce the speed and accuracy of iterative model runs. Rough planning maps for potential 3A districts were produced throughout the fall of 2023, with the first compliance run completed in October. However, this was later deemed unworkable due to a misinterpretation of contiguity requirements. The first 3A-compliant zoning map proposals that also met contiguity constraints were not available to the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee until January 22, 2024.

Despite the scale of 3A, its multigenerational impact on the look and feel of towns across the state, and the material gaps in the state’s own effort to build the critical (and mandatory) model to evaluate parcel compliance, there has been no extension of the state’s compliance deadlines. Instead, the impact has been a huge increase in the time town staff and committee members have had to spend on the issue (co-chair Roy Epstein has basically repurposed the state model so it works better and faster to analyze scenarios) and town spending on supporting contractors. Perhaps most importantly, these problems have compressed our available calendar time to fully evaluate our compliance options.

It is notable that even today, the state’s compliance model is not able to properly handle modifications to setbacks in its compliance calculations.

Changing Regulations: A third issue has been the evolving regulations. Since the final guidelines were issued in August 2022, the state has formally amended them twice. Further, much ambiguity exists in how the guidelines apply to Belmont. Town staff and committee chairs have had regular calls with the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC), which oversees the law, in an effort to clarify the town’s target. The decisions and direction from these conversations have, for the most part, not been formalized in written letters of understanding. There is a worry that some may be revisited or rejected by the state in the future if memories fade or EOHLC staff turns over.

Still Inadequate Protections for Abutters: Fourth, the potential impacts of 3A on abutters remain significant and have not yet been adequately evaluated by the committee. This task will now shift to the Planning Board. Once Belmont’s by-right 3A zoning is passed, there will be few opportunities for residents to shape the scale or appearance of the structures next to them. Indeed, statutory changes passed at the same time as 3A make neighbor challenges of projects financially risky. The state can require impacted parties wishing to challenge a zoning decision to first put in place a bond of up to $50,000.¹² Funds would be forfeited if they lost their case. 

These projects affect what is, for most people, their most valuable asset and may expose homeowners to significant negative impacts on their quality of life, privacy, and property values. Further, it is the homeowners, not the large developers, who face the most constrained financial capacity to fight for an acceptable outcome. Clearly, even without the new bonding risks, homeowners already faced high costs simply to hire legal counsel. 

The goal of 3A is to accelerate higher-density construction by removing as many zoning “impediments” as possible. The bonding requirement seems to tilt the playing field further against small homeowners and give developers more power to ignore abutter concerns. Norwell Town Counsel Bob Galvin remarked at the time the bonding was added to the state statute that it was “a pro-development change to the law, and it will dissuade a lot of people who may want to appeal a lot of projects if they suffer losing $50,000 if they lose. It’s going to be a tough one for abutters.”¹³

Next Steps for Belmont 3A Compliance Planning

Handoff of Belmont’s 3A plans from the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee to the Planning Board occurred in early April, and the Planning Board is expected to continue the review and refinement of the town’s 3A-compliant rezoning plan. Utile, an external contractor, has been hired to support the town in a few key areas. First, they will refine the building characteristics allowed under the 3A proposal using a simplified version of “form-based code” (FBC). FBC develops shape profiles of allowable buildings rather than just minimum and maximum dimensional limits, providing towns with more control over the look and feel of what ends up getting built. Utile will also develop massing images of the allowed building types to illustrate how these structures, with allowed smaller setbacks, will appear to neighbors. 

It is critical that this imaging will incorporate not just views from the street, but also the views from the backyard and windows of neighbors to flag areas of encroachment or loss of privacy. To date, dimensional attributes on building size, parking, and setbacks have been plugged into the model without evaluation of alternatives or a clear assessment of the resultant structure impact on neighborhood look and feel. These values continue to be modified in model runs, though without much or any discussion of the changes in public meetings. It should be an important area of focus for the Planning Board review.

On a related issue, Chris Ryan, the town’s director of planning and building, confirmed that evaluating and improving step-downs on larger 3A structures will be “one of several significant points of emphasis” in the Utile engagement.¹⁴ Step-downs reduce building scale and density at the perimeters with lower-scale abutting properties. The configurations of the housing subdistricts and the associated 3A-compliant zoning map do not currently have step-downs built into them. Utile will also draft the text of zoning language that will go before Town Meeting.

In the map provided to the Planning Board, there remain areas of high impact on specific abutting regions, and changes to setbacks and other attributes will likely be needed. These changes would also affect unit counts and other elements of 3A compliance. The improved ability of the town to modify the model, supplemented by the capabilities of Utile, should make these changes feasible within the available time frame. However, this step should have beenExecutive Office of Housing and Livable Communities planned for from the outset.

The Planning Board will include a formal public hearings process on its proposals prior to presenting a final option to Town Meeting for a vote. 

Assuming the Town Meeting passes the 3A proposal, a final compliance review by the state is still needed. Although we are using the analytic tool developed by the state, the state’s review of other towns has already deemed some town-selected parcels noncompliant. To avoid a situation where a plan approved by Town Meeting is later deemed noncompliant in state review (which would result in our missing the final deadlines for Commuter Rail Communities), the town is permitted to send its proposal for state evaluation ahead of the Town Meeting vote. State review will take up to 90 days, meaning the Planning Board must have a near-final plan by June 20, according to the Office of Planning and Building’s current timeline. This is a great illustration of the calendar compression caused by deficits in the state’s compliance model, with the span running only from January 24, 2024, when our first 3A-compliant scenario was distributed to the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee, and June 20, 2024, when what is basically our final version for Town Meeting gets shipped to the state for preapproval compliance review. This is a period of less than five months to rezone 15% percent of the town’s housing capacity.

1. Managing key tensions in developing Belmont’s compliance strategy

With 3A forcing so much of Belmont into a rezoning discussion, it is not surprising that the law has become a backdrop for residents and committee members to promote their visions of the town. Nor is it surprising that some of these visions conflict. Key areas of tension are presented below, along with how the issues have been resolved thus far.

1. Sharing impacts across town. An early and broadly-held objective of both the MBTA Communities Advisory Committee and residents was to share the impact of larger, more dense zoning across town. This was seen as equitable to all residents and also politically savvy, given the need to approve the 3A plan in a representative Town Meeting. Practically, a distributed approach also helps to spread the new population across transit lines, parks, and schools, reducing potential traffic and capacity constraints. New residents would also be adjacent to multiple commercial districts, which would benefit stores in those regions. 

Early maps did a good job distributing impact, but state requirements for a single contiguous district to comprise 50% of the 3A zoning required much more concentration than in the earlier plans. As a result, the current maps have most of the new zoning within Waverley, an already congested part of town. Additional 3A zoning is also included near Belmont Center and in the Blanchard/Brighton area. While other parts of town, such as South Pleasant and Cushing Square, have existing overlay districts, and so are contributing to expanded development options outside of 3A, the impacts of 3A zoning are not being spread as widely as people had hoped.

2. Meeting minimum 3A requirements versus zoning for many more units. A core tension over the past year has been between residents and committee members who wish to meet the state requirement but not exceed it and others who strongly favor using the 3A process and simple majority zoning passage to greatly overshoot 3A housing mandates to achieve other goals. These other goals included accelerating compliance with Belmont’s Housing Production Plan, protecting the town from adversarial development proposals under 40B, creating more affordable units once the 3A mandates were met, trying to obtain state subsidies for higher density housing than 3A under the state’s 40R zoning rules, and creating more options for families starting out or wishing to downsize while staying in town.

Those advocating for minimum compliance pointed out that 3A was already creating a very large increase in net housing; that the economic impact remains unvetted; and that the timelines and restrictions on 3A were more rigid than what can be done outside of 3A, increasing the risk of zoning and redevelopment mistakes. 

Some of the hoped-for benefits of overshooting were also more limited than initially believed by proponents. For example, subsidies to Belmont under 40R would be small and likely zero based on an analysis done by co-chair Roy Epstein. Protection from 40B projects hinges on permits being pulled, not rezoning of the 3A overlay, so 3A allowance of excess units would add little near- or mid-term protection in reality. 3A-compliant units must be configured for families, so they may be less of a fit for downsizing. Further, there is an expectation that 3A may not be the last mandate the state puts forth, and large overshoots (some early proposals produced more than double the required units) would reduce the town’s latitude to respond to future demands. Finally, adding units outside of Waverley complicated trying to meet the contiguity requirements for the Waverley district as a share of total 3A zoning, which then needed to be counteracted by adding still more density to Waverley–an undesirable outcome.

The path chosen by the vast majority of the committee and favored by many residents and members of the Planning Board was to achieve minimum compliance plus a 10% buffer on unit count to protect against potential state disqualification of parcels. Affordability has been incorporated into the current recommendation by including Belmont Housing Authority parcels within the proposed map and via existing inclusionary zoning bylaws that Director of Planning and Building Chris Ryan expects will pass their economic feasibility review. 

3. Protecting commercially zoned parcels. Efforts to boost the unit count and to benefit from mixed-use to feed foot traffic to adjacent stores led to many proposals to include commercial or municipal parcels within 3A maps. Some suggested parcels, such as the Star Market in Waverley, were proposed for large-scale residential on top of commercial. 

These proposals faced strong opposition from many due to a concern that the town’s limited commercial districts could be replaced by more residential, countering town goals to constrain escalating budget costs (of which schooling is the largest) and boost the commercial tax base. 

Mandatory mixed-use (MMU) configurations allowed under 3A were proposed as a solution since the zoning could ensure the first floor remained commercial. Key problems remained, however. First, 3A MMU would limit commercial space to only the first floor. Second, replacing existing commercial with larger scale mixed use would likely force closure of existing stores for a year or more, possibly resulting in their permanent loss. Third, since the units weren’t needed for compliance and the acres don’t count, including MMU zones in commercial districts precluded the option to do a slower, more thoughtful commercial sector re-visioning than is possible under the rules and deadlines of 3A. Finally, many commercial properties are not 3A-eligible anyway since they are protected under the demolition delay bylaw, and 3A caps the number of 3A-eligible residential units as well, a cap Belmont exceeded in many of the higher MMU scenarios. 

4. Minimizing adverse impacts on neighbors. Allowable criteria for many of the 3A building types (referred to as “subdistricts”) are expected to have significant impacts on adjacent small residential properties. These include allowable heights that are the same for flat-roofed buildings and pitched roof ones (effectively allowing them to be taller relative to current zoning rules), very small setbacks (as little as zero feet for front and sides and 15’ for rear), and reduced parking. 

The current proposal has tried to address this issue through placement, with many of the largest structures allowed on parcels with no direct abutters (near nature land, train tracks, or road). However, even the smaller sized buildings have higher lot coverage and much smaller setbacks than what is now allowed, and may feel quite intrusive to neighbors. The smallest residential setbacks allowed for dwellings in Belmont’s current zoning is 20’ for front, 10’ for sides, and 20’ for rear. Rear setbacks for single residence districts are 30′ to 40’, at least double what is being proposed for 3A.¹⁵ Further, the largest structures (on Belmont Housing Authority parcels) can be as much as five stories tall but, at present, have no formalized step-downs even though they do sometimes directly abut single-family homes. Similar issues exist with subdistricts 4 and 5, which can be as tall as 4 and 5 stories, respectively.

Visualization of proposed building typologies in context will highlight the areas of largest concern. These should be done showing the view from neighbors (not just from the street), and assuming the maximum allowable scale of the proposed building typology, including any “bonus” floors likely to be granted by right if particular (yet-to-be-defined) conditions are met. It is likely that adjustments to setbacks and other building criteria will then be needed, with possible adjustments to parcels if the unit counts drop below compliance at that point.

5. Protecting versus eliminating parking capacity. Parking rules have generated frequent, robust, and wide-reaching debate throughout this process. A group of residents view parking requirements as something to eliminate in order to achieve some mix of reduced costs for new buildings, easier opening for businesses, pushing people onto public transit, reduced car traffic to enhance a walkable community, and repurposing parking lots for new (mostly residential) buildings. While proponents of parking reform did not explicitly say they wanted to end the ban on overnight street parking in Belmont, this seems an unstated goal, as removal of private parking will not mean that people no longer have vehicles but only that they have far fewer off-street places to park them. 

Some of the other arguments were also problematic. Public transit remains quite limited in Belmont, mostly going into Cambridge and Boston rather than within the town. The train line around which 3A districts are required to center runs one train per hour during rush hours and less frequently at other times. Mandated parking can add to the cost of building apartments, one of the arguments for getting rid of it. However, the negative impacts on tenants without vehicles can be much reduced if construction of parking remains mandated but the spaces are not assigned automatically to specific units or even to residents of the building, but rather marketed separately as amenities. This ensures that the buildings install underground parking during construction (this is impossible to do later) while avoiding cross-subsidies from renters with no vehicles to those with them. 

Efforts to replace the handful of municipal lots, including the Claflin Lot in Belmont Center, seem to undervalue the importance of accessible parking to keeping our retail stores healthy. Finally, walkability within Belmont is largely fixed already, given that we are very built up and that the highest-use traffic corridors heavily support vehicles moving through town, not drivers and passengers living here. 3A will not change these flows.

The current proposal assumes one spot for each lower-density unit and 0.5 spots for higher-density buildings. These are lower than current requirements and untested within Belmont. They align with benchmarking Economic Development Committee did in other communities, however, so they may be adequate.¹⁶

Critical review items that remain open

As the review and refinement of the 3A rezoning proposal shift to the Planning Board, the following items remain open:

• Economic impact assessment. With large open construction projects and the recent passage of a contested property tax override, understanding the impact of any 3A proposal on Belmont’s town finances will be critical. The  impact of new construction on town services and school enrollment is a concern, and particularly whether concentrated growth will trigger any large capital projects regarding schools, water, sewer, electric power, or roads. The engagement with Utile will include an economic impact evaluation of 3A.

• Step-downs. Adjustments to Belmont Housing Authority parcels are needed to ensure a scale that blends with the town both for its residents and for abutters. Step-downs may be needed in other parts of the map (e.g., subdistricts 4 and 5) as well.
• Abutter impacts. Review and adjustment of dimensional characteristics of building typologies has been critically needed for months. The Utile engagement will produce this during May and should enable abutters to clearly visualize what could be coming next door. Massing will need to illustrate how particular building types look from the perspective of a neighbor standing in their own backyard or a room in their house. Impacts on open space, sunlight, privacy, and other factors should be visible. This analysis will also need to incorporate any “bonus” stories that the town would allow by right. Results may trigger adjustments to scale and setbacks in order to reduce negative impacts, which then need to be incorporated into the proposal sent to the State for pre-review and brought before Fall Town Meeting. 
• Warrant language. The language on which Town Meeting will vote requires the development of zoning language and form-based approaches by Utile based on what they have already done for other towns. Form-based zoning, in particular, is needed to increase the town’s confidence that the structures that will be built are aligned with what residents, staff, and officials want for the town.
• State reviews and approval. Well prior to the Town Meeting vote, Belmont needs to seek formal state approval of its selected mandatory mixed-use parcels, pre-approval of its compliance map, and to complete an economic feasibility analysis of applying its inclusionary zoning bylaw to 3A parcels. Guidance on Belmont-specific items developed via informal calls with EOHLC should be memorialized in writing between the two parties, and with assistance from Town Counsel, to avoid problems in the future.

Notes

1. Josh Fiala, Metropolitan Area Planning Council, presentation at the Belmont public forum, January 29, 2024. Accessible at  https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/uClcIN88BHKHJoveFoaVN_8_5Tg72P0o/playlists/10530/media/851564 with discussion starting at the 17:00 mark.
2. The Belmont MBTA Communities Advisory Committee, “MBTA Communities Zoning Project Report to the Planning Board,” April 11, 2024, pp. 18, 19.
3. Nathan Carlucci, MA Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, email to Doug Koplow, January 17, 2024.
4. See, for example, Melih Cevik, “The Surprising Solution to Housing Affordability: Regulating Airbnb,” Harvard Political Review, November 29, 2023. Belmont was evaluating expanded rules on rental platforms in 2019 as special permit requirements were not being followed. Belmont started looking at the issue in 2016. For one example of the discussion within town, see also “Discussion of New Short Term Rental Laws,” in Minutes, Town of Belmont Board of Selectmen, January 7, 2019.
5.  Section 13 of The Affordable Homes Act states that “No zoning ordinance or by-law shall prohibit, unreasonably restrict, or require a special permit or other discretionary zoning approval for the use of land or structures for an accessory dwelling unit, or the rental thereof, in a single-family residential zoning district.” The rules would allow site plan review and some compliance with height and setbacks. They also mandate reduced parking requirements,  allow units to be built on the lot separate from existing structures, and do not require the owner to live at the same location.
6. Roshan Abraham, “Hedge funds have invaded the housing market; a new bill would ban them,” Vice.com, December 7, 2023.
7. This cap doesn’t just apply to property taxes, but to the combined total of local property taxes and state income taxes. Most homes in Belmont pay well over $10,000 per year in property taxes alone.
8. Author calculations based on National Multifamily Housing Council, “2022 Rankings: NMHC 50 Largest Apartment Owners,” and “2022 Rankings NMHC 50 Largest Apartment Managers,” accessed April 3, 2024.
9.  See, for example, Lane Brown, “New Yorkers Never Came ‘Flooding Back.’ Why Did Rents Go Up So Much?” Curbed, January 27, 2023.
10.  Listings for the Bradford on Apartment.com as of March 31, 2024, https://www.apartments.com/the-bradford-belmont-ma/cb7zc9e/
11. “Town of Belmont Zoning Bylaw,” Belmont, MA Section 6.10, accessed March 31, 2024.
12. “Town of Belmont Zoning Bylaw,” Belmont, MA Section 6.10, accessed March 31, 2024.
13.  Wheeler Cowperthwaite, “Opposed to a proposed development? Going to court could cost $50,000 under new state law,” Patriot Ledger, August 12, 2021; accessed April 1, 2024.
14.  Chris Ryan email to Doug Koplow, March 18, 2024.
15.  See “4.2.2 Linear Requirements for Residential Districts,” Town of Belmont Zoning Bylaw, accessed April 12, 2024.
16. See review of parking requirements in a number of surrounding towns compiled by Paul Joy, chair of the Economic Development Committee: “Economic Development Committee – Parking, Signs, and Heights,” June 15, 2023.

Doug Koplow is a Town Meeting Member in Precinct 6, a member of the Cushing Square Neighborhood Association, and a member of the Solid Waste Recycling Committee. The author is grateful for the input provided by Robert Sarno, Precinct 3 Town Meeting Member. Any remaining errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author alone.